Ants on blackcurrant bush

Dundunbanza

I have a blackcurrant bush that is about 3 years old and about 5 foot tall. It appears to be infested with ants anyone know if ants are attracted to blackcurrant bushes and how I can get rid of them? Its only produced currants once, it looks healthy I haven't checked if there's a nest under the bush. Thanks for any help.

heirloom

Dundunbanza wrote: »

I have a blackcurrant bush that is about 3 years old and about 5 foot tall. It appears to be infested with ants anyone know if ants are attracted to blackcurrant bushes and how I can get rid of them? Its only produced currants once, it looks healthy I haven't checked if there's a nest under the bush. Thanks for any help.

I wouldn't get rid of ants as they are very beneficial to the garden, killing many parasites and they don't eat plants or blackcurrants. If a blackcurrant is broken they may lick the sugary juice but they wont harm the plant or attempt to open a whole blackcurrant. Have you checked to see if you have aphids on the bush that are attracting the ants. Ants 'farm' aphids: they herd and tend them and in return eat the sugar nectar extruded by the aphid. Apart from humans ants are the only species to farm another species. if you have aphids then kill them and the ants will go elsewhere. Don't kill ants they are amazingly useful and beneficial to the garden. They're natures 'dustbin men' and will kill caterpillars and many other pests. the more ants the better. They are carnivours they don't eat plants or blackcurrants. You should be grateful you have them.

Dundunbanza

Thanks, ok I'll look for some aphids.

Niksan

I've noticed a hell of a lot of bigish ants on my blackcurrent tree (only about two foot high) this morning while picking some fruit, gives me the shudders especially when I had a few of the !!!!!!s crawling on my hands.

Infact, it's only this year I've noticed the big ants, I have ants in my front garden that cross my path from lawn to lawn but those are a lot smaller, so are these are new flavour of ant or are they part of the same colony that do a different job?

I've also noticed that I have two large rasberry bushes either side of the blackcurrent tree but rarely see ants on them, so what's so atractive about the blackcurrent tree? I'm almost at a stage where I'm going to pull the blackcurrent tree out as I don't want the ant population to go nuts and get into the house.